Transformers: Age of the Primes toyline discussion || update: Wave 1 Box Art

[Sabrblade]

Well it's not like Optimus would just blow his head off in cold blood. Even eight year old me wouldn't have believed Optimus would do that. What depraved loon deviated from the rest of humanity would?

To be a little fair...

"Megatron must be stopped! No matter the cost!"

"One shall stand, one shall fall!"
"Why throw away your life so recklessly?"
"That's a question you should ask yourself, Megatron!"

"You, who are without mercy, now plead for it?! I thought you were made of sterner stuff!"

In that part of the movie, Prime was willing to kill for the greater good.

(And that's how Bayverse Prime was born! )

 

[Undead Scottsman]

"Megatron must be stopped no matter the cost."

Turns out that, no, there are several costs Prime wasn't willing to pay.

 

[Exatron]

That is all part of why I feel a bit weird when people talk about "the lore". There shouldn't be a "the lore", having a "the lore" means that stuff has started stagnating, that there's no more new interpretations and there's just the old stuff congealing into a single relic, which isn't really true, Transformers stories used to be pretty different from one interpretation to another.

Lore is not at all restricted to old stuff, and it isn't static. There's the brand lore (the war, Optimus & Megatron, the 13, etc.), which gets reinvented to some extent all the time. Then there's the lore for each individual series, which inevitably has some overlap with the brand as a whole, but also has a bunch of stuff that's all its own. E.g., Earthspark has its own lore about the war, how it ended, the relationship between Cybertron and Earth, etc.

I mean, we're here discussing a line that's about as lore-y as you can get, delving into the mythical 13 really for the first time. And it's mostly speculation here, because it's picking bits and pieces from just about every previous incarnation of the brand, while also throwing its own new spin on things. That's kinda the way Transformers has always been, and I neither want nor expect that particular aspect of it to change.

 

[Sabrblade]

I mean, we're here discussing a line that's about as lore-y as you can get,

Short of actually featuring, well, Lori.

(Yes, I specifically picked a pic of "Lori with lore")

 

[Rustron]

Lore is not at all restricted to old stuff, and it isn't static. There's the brand lore (the war, Optimus & Megatron, the 13, etc.), which gets reinvented to some extent all the time. Then there's the lore for each individual series, which inevitably has some overlap with the brand as a whole, but also has a bunch of stuff that's all its own. E.g., Earthspark has its own lore about the war, how it ended, the relationship between Cybertron and Earth, etc.

I mean, we're here discussing a line that's about as lore-y as you can get, delving into the mythical 13 really for the first time. And it's mostly speculation here, because it's picking bits and pieces from just about every previous incarnation of the brand, while also throwing its own new spin on things. That's kinda the way Transformers has always been, and I neither want nor expect that particular aspect of it to change.

I guess sometimes it feels like there's more old bits and pieces than new spins, you know? I like both things obviously, but feel like the "new" part of the deal has gotten quite smaller. Like there's been a lot of homogenization of the old stuff too, passed off as new stuff, instead of brand new things. Personally, I feel the extent to which things get reinvented has gotten a bit too short. As I said, I'm happy with Generations in a vacuum, what bothers me is the place it has taken in the "big picture", so to speak.

Maybe I'm just salty we never got a full Fossilizers vs Infernac Rocks toyline & show, lol...

Edit: And TFONE toys that change from non-transforming to transforming using cogs as keys! Interchangeable T-Cogs which grant different features! How did that not happen?!

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I'm sure Hasbro is partly doing that for their own sanity. They want to consolidate because they can't keep track of it all.

 

[LordGigaIce]

Maybe I'm just salty we never got a full Fossilizers vs Infernac Rocks toyline & show, lol...

I happily went all in on the Infernac guys because they were new and fun.

But you know what? Archer was wrong.

Like... I look at my SS '86 Dinobots. Or ER Optimus (or SS '86 Optimus for the rest of you, no I'm not out of touch you're all out of touch!) and it's like... this stuff is perfect.
It goes back to what we were saying about Star Convoy. Sometimes you have to just hit the nail on the head, ya know? Sometimes you just have to do the obvious thing because it's obvious for a reason.

I admire Archer's body of work. And as someone whose fandom was solidified in the UT, how can I not? No kidding, the bits that made me cheer the loudest in Trigger's 40th anniversary video were seeing Rad, Alexis, Carlos, Lori, Coby, and Bud again (Kicker remains The Worst though).

But...

That doesn't mean I think Archer's some infallible toy god emperor willing to make the hard choices the John Wardens and Mark Mahers of the world are too blinded by nostalgia to make. Fact is that as much as I loved the UT and Archer's overall success, as a fan? I've enjoyed the post-Archer output much more.

Gone are the arbitrary half measures and weird design choices in service to a philosophy that considered just making a nice figure of an 80s design "backwards."
I have no problems looking to the future, and yeah. I think the brand team should do it more than they have (arguably they are with AotP).
But "always forward never backwards" is a "cut off your nose to spite your face" philosophy IMO. This isn't social-political policy where constant progress is necessary for a continuously improving free society.
This is plastic robot toys. Nostalgia and fan indulgence is part of the fun.

 

[Donocropolis]

Maybe I'm just salty we never got a full Fossilizers vs Infernac Rocks toyline & show, lol...

Get this man a team of writers and animators, STAT!

 

[Shadewing]

I happily went all in on the Infernac guys because they were new and fun.

But you know what? Archer was wrong.

Like... I look at my SS '86 Dinobots. Or ER Optimus (or SS '86 Optimus for the rest of you, no I'm not out of touch you're all out of touch!) and it's like... this stuff is perfect.
It goes back to what we were saying about Star Convoy. Sometimes you have to just hit the nail on the head, ya know? Sometimes you just have to do the obvious thing because it's obvious for a reason.

Yes, and then what? Once you have the obvious idealized G1 cast, do you stop doing them? Do you just keep remaking the wheel?

 

[Cybersnark]

Do you just keep remaking the wheel?

We could use a new Scrounge, actually.

 

[Sabrblade]

We could use a new Scrounge, actually.

Then retool him into ROTF Jetfire's father.

 

[Donocropolis]

I've been enjoying the current mix. I'll admit that it is probably TOO G1 heavy, but if you asked me to describe exactly what I would want out of a Transformers line, it would be something like "G1 more-or-less in full, making sure to include the weird obscure characters that haven't had a new or good toy in a long time if ever; the best characters from every other iteration of the brand in a style that aesthetically fits in with the previously described G1 guys; add in some brand new additions with never-seen-before alt modes; and top it off with a sprinkle of toys that never made past the concept stage." which is pretty much what we've been getting.

Admittedly, there is a finite amount of characters, so other than the new guys they would run out someday, but there's a long way to go before we got there.

 

[Steevy Maximus]

I find it interesting that Mark explicitly cited Prima as sporting the "Creation Matrix", NOT the Matrix of Leadership.
You know what would help with this whole "Primes" thing? Give them all a Matrix (or comparative Macguffin thing like Star Convoy's Zodiac). Follow the Japanese series and give any Prime a matrix.
Matrices for everybody!

I happily went all in on the Infernac guys because they were new and fun.

But you know what? Archer was wrong.

Like... I look at my SS '86 Dinobots. Or ER Optimus (or SS '86 Optimus for the rest of you, no I'm not out of touch you're all out of touch!) and it's like... this stuff is perfect.
It goes back to what we were saying about Star Convoy. Sometimes you have to just hit the nail on the head, ya know? Sometimes you just have to do the obvious thing because it's obvious for a reason.

I admire Archer's body of work. And as someone whose fandom was solidified in the UT, how can I not? No kidding, the bits that made me cheer the loudest in Trigger's 40th anniversary video were seeing Rad, Alexis, Carlos, Lori, Coby, and Bud again (Kicker remains The Worst though).

But...

That doesn't mean I think Archer's some infallible toy god emperor willing to make the hard choices the John Wardens and Mark Mahers of the world are too blinded by nostalgia to make. Fact is that as much as I loved the UT and Archer's overall success, as a fan? I've enjoyed the post-Archer output much more.

Gone are the arbitrary half measures and weird design choices in service to a philosophy that considered just making a nice figure of an 80s design "backwards."
I have no problems looking to the future, and yeah. I think the brand team should do it more than they have (arguably they are with AotP).
But "always forward never backwards" is a "cut off your nose to spite your face" philosophy IMO. This isn't social-political policy where constant progress is necessary for a continuously improving free society.
This is plastic robot toys. Nostalgia and fan indulgence is part of the fun.

As I've gotten older, the more I've learned how this stuff is actually made and how long I've been wallowing in nostalgia...the more I understand (if not always agree) with the decisions and directions Aaron Archer made during his tenure.

But I also think a big elephant in the room is simply the differences in the broader market between then and now. When Archer took over, toys were still primarily sold to kids with collectors as a tertiary concern. in that context, I think he made, largely, valid decisions.

This days? Kidault/Collectors/Fan Channel/(insert trendy term for man-children buying toys) are representing a more significant portion of the action figure market, to the point Hasbro has largely "divided" its brands into "kid stuff" and "collector stuff", which has brought a whole host of accompanying issues. While I like a lot of what the current team has put out, I think we HAVE lost something by not being willing to let the creative juices flow a bit more. And I have a whole laundry list of issues with how current media and their toy tie ins are being handled, but that's another discussion topic entirely.

Again, I was totally on board with "Powermaster Star Convoy", but I CAN see why the opted for the direction they did. But a part me would STILL have liked to see that toy concept realized over "the original toy with more articulation but less gimmicks".

 

[Steevy Maximus]

Yes, and then what? Once you have the obvious idealized G1 cast, do you stop doing them? Do you just keep remaking the wheel?

The catch there is that...there IS no "idealized G1 cast" everyone can agree on. You have toy, cartoon, and comic, each with their own quirks and unique style choices. The early Generations/Prime Wars days were heavily geared around the toys as the default look. These days the Sunbow cartoon is more the default. And the comic just gets the odd reference here and there.

THEN you have the people that want everybody made with more modern looks, so there's a fourth style to work on. And then, by that point, it had been so long since the toy designs, people are going to want them redone again, and so the pattern would go.

By that point, we'd all be too old and poor to enjoy any of it anyway!

 

[LordGigaIce]

Yes, and then what? Once you have the obvious idealized G1 cast, do you stop doing them? Do you just keep remaking the wheel?

I donno. I suspect there will always be a market for not just G1, but the Beast Era, UT, Bayverse, Animated, Prime, etc... casts.

There are new collectors coming into the hobby all the time. And older figures, even if they're perfectly fine and don't need much if any improvements, will always be hard to get either by relative rarity or after market prices, or both. SS '86 Optimus may be the ideal G1 Optimus figure but he's going to be rare and only available on the after market one day, and that will always be incentive enough to do another take on G1 Optimus five, ten, fifteen, twenty years down the road.

Does this mean we're stuck in a nostalgia cycle? No. At least not any more than any other fandom.
There's room to revisit old favourites and do new things.

I just don't think appreciating and wanting new things means shunning the classics. There's room for everything.

 

[Donocropolis]

As I've gotten older, the more I've learned how this stuff is actually made and how long I've been wallowing in nostalgia...the more I understand (if not always agree) with the decisions and directions Aaron Archer made during his tenure.

But I also think a big elephant in the room is simply the differences in the broader market between then and now. When Archer took over, toys were still primarily sold to kids with collectors as a tertiary concern. in that context, I think he made, largely, valid decisions.

This days? Kidault/Collectors/Fan Channel/(insert trendy term for man-children buying toys) are representing a more significant portion of the action figure market, to the point Hasbro has largely "divided" its brands into "kid stuff" and "collector stuff", which has brought a whole host of accompanying issues. While I like a lot of what the current team has put out, I think we HAVE lost something by not being willing to let the creative juices flow a bit more. And I have a whole laundry list of issues with how current media and their toy tie ins are being handled, but that's another discussion topic entirely.

Again, I was totally on board with "Powermaster Star Convoy", but I CAN see why the opted for the direction they did. But a part me would STILL have liked to see that toy concept realized over "the original toy with more articulation but less gimmicks".

I would say yes and no. On one hand, it's not like a kid is going to know who the hell Star Convoy was and therefore reject the toy as being an old obscure character that they don't care about. You can please both camps by doing new, fun toys of old characters.

On the other hand, though, you have to watch out for the "we already have Optimus Prime at home." I know that the big name characters have to stay in rotation, but there does come a point where the parents aren't going to buy their kid another Bumblebee, and I, the discerning adult collector, already have plenty of him in my collection as well.

 

[LordGigaIce]

As I've gotten older, the more I've learned how this stuff is actually made and how long I've been wallowing in nostalgia...the more I understand (if not always agree) with the decisions and directions Aaron Archer made during his tenure.

As I've gotten older I've become more and more critical of Aaron Archer's overall philosophy.

One can appreciate a person's talent and achievements while still being critical of them.

 

[LordGigaIce]

I would say yes and no. On one hand, it's not like a kid is going to know who the hell Star Convoy was and therefore reject the toy as being an old obscure character that they don't care about. You can please both camps by doing new, fun toys of old characters.

I think older collectors (30 and up) need to get out of their own head space. Some of us still have Classics '06 Optimus as our collection's Optimus because they like him that much and nothing since has really compelled them.
So every take on G1 Optimus since is like... enough, enough.

But like... I'm active in a few TF Discord servers. There are 18 year olds who weren't walking when Classics '06 Prime was current who are now collecting and for them ER Prime or SS '86 Prime is their way to get that character.
Like I see people complaining that neither new Hound trumps Universe 2.0 Hound. Yeah, maybe in your opinion, but there are in fact young adults and teens who want to collect these characters and I'm sorry, figures from 15-20 years ago aren't super available for them.

All of that is to say that even among older collectors... Star Convoy is a holy grail. He's a figment in the far distance to younger collectors.

So if Hasbro does a new version with more articulation but otherwise remains faithful... so what?
ITS NOT ORIGINAL

No, but there are young people out there that think Star Convoy looks rad and the chance to own an original is slim to zero, but a new release? That just might be doable.

 

[Haywire]

The catch there is that...there IS no "idealized G1 cast" everyone can agree on. You have toy, cartoon, and comic, each with their own quirks and unique style choices. The early Generations/Prime Wars days were heavily geared around the toys as the default look. These days the Sunbow cartoon is more the default. And the comic just gets the odd reference here and there.

THEN you have the people that want everybody made with more modern looks, so there's a fourth style to work on. And then, by that point, it had been so long since the toy designs, people are going to want them redone again, and so the pattern would go.

By that point, we'd all be too old and poor to enjoy any of it anyway!

AND THEN you have the crazy people (like me) who want everyone made in a smaller scale (Legends/Legion/Core) so they can recreate all the main casts in scale with their old Gobot collection, because all those old figures will never* get made at a Deluxe scale...

*(beyond the odd redeco nod)

 

[Donocropolis]

AND THEN you have the crazy people (like me) who want everyone made in a smaller scale (Legends/Legion/Core) so they can recreate all the main casts in scale with their old Gobot collection, because all those old figures will never* get made at a Deluxe scale...

*(beyond the odd redeco nod)

Yes, but scientists are currently looking for a cure for this condition. For the price of only a cup of coffee a day, you can help.

Actually, I have to be very careful in this arena as well. I love tiny little guys, so I've had to strongly resist the siren song of those third party toys that have everyone in Legends scale.